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Israel releases bodies of alleged Palestinian assailants

Funerals are held for five Palestinians aged 15-18 who were killed in the recent wave of violence by Israeli forces for allegedly attacking civilians and soldiers. Mana Rabiee reports.

TRANSCRIPT +

In the West Bank city of Hebron, funerals for five Palestinians killed in the recent wave of violence.
They're alleged by Israel to have carried out attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians in separate attacks.
Israel returned the bodies late Friday after withholding them, a policy thought to help prevent the glorification of attackers during mass funerals just like this.
The five dead buried on Saturday were all teenagers -- ages 15-18, two of them females.
They're among at least 65 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces since the latest unrest began October 1st -- and Israel says nearly 40 of those were assailants, many of them teenagers armed mainly with knives.
The policy to hold the bodies of assailants did little to stop the latest attack, this time in nearby Jenin, where Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man who ran at them with a knife.
Palestinian medics say he was 18-year-old Mahmoud Talal Nazal.
His father accompanied his son's body at the morgue.
(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) FATHER OF PALESTINIAN WHO WAS SHOT DEAD, TALAL NAZAL, SAYING:
"In the morning he left for his mother a message saying: forgive me if the Israeli authorities destroy our home, I want to become a martyr. Send my regards to my brothers and to my father."
The month-long surge in violence erupted in part over religious and political tensions over the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
It's the worst such violence since the 2014 Gaza war and shows no signs of abating.

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